THE BREAD PEOPLE

About

Delivering Swiss Braided Bread and treats to homes and businesses in and around Mesa. Call The Bread People @ 480-600-3235 to order.

Story

Toni and Michele Smith are The Bread People, a Mesa company which bakes homemade breads from their shop, 755 E. Broadway Road (at Horne Road).

“Every Christmas since we moved to Arizona in 1996 we had given our neighbors braided bread for Christmas,” says Michele, a Swiss native who has been married to Toni for 32 years.

“As our children started into the teenage years, we were looking for work that we could do together as a family,” adds Toni, who was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and also lived in California and Utah.

The family painted schools and homes, fixed roofs, did mobile car detailing and other work. After successfully selling bread for a school fund-raiser, they began their business May 1, 1999.

“While the kids were in school, I made the breads,” says Michele, the oldest of seven children who became an elementary school teacher in Switzerland. “When they got home, we ate dinner together and then we would head out to find customers for our breads.”

Today, the Mesa residents have four sons and four daughters: [five] married, [two] in college and one in the [tenth] grade at Heritage Academy in Mesa. They have [ten] grandchildren. They employ over 20 workers and deliver to thousands of Mesa residents and are always looking for quality part-timers.

Swiss-braided bread in large and small sizes is their biggest seller, and they also offer whole wheat and multigrain bread in two sizes — without any sugar, fats, oils or preservatives. Their whole wheat banana bread — “a big hit” says Michele — is made with an olive/canola oil blend.

The Bread People now offer Lovebird Baskets — the ones the couple have been giving newly-weds for 12 years — with two dove-shaped breads. Assorted Bread baskets, comprising six kinds of bread, cinnamon rolls and oatmeal cookies, are another addition.

Michele recalls as a child going to her great-grandparent’s house, with a little country store and bakery, in the small village of Reutenen in Switzerland. There, the family would gather at the old farmhouse, with braided bread always part of the meal.

“I loved going to my great-grandparent’s house because it always smelled so good of fresh bread, and I would usually get a treat from one of my great-aunts,” says Michele, who met Toni in Provo, Utah, in May of 1979, while she was visiting for her sister’s wedding and taking classes at Brigham Young University.

In Switzerland, Michele’s great-grandfather with his sons and grandsons would decorate “Lebkuchen”, a Christmas specialty. He would pack the fresh goods into the sidecar of his motorcycle and drive to all the outlaying farmhouses to deliver them, she says. “I thought that if my great-grandfather could see us, he would probably be delighted that something he enjoyed doing all these years ago was continued by his great-granddaughter and her children in America.”

Toni’s grandfather was similarly employed: He ran the Andelin dairy in Idaho Falls, delivering fresh milk to his customers every day and involving his children in the business.

[Five] years ago, the Smiths purchased the 1,800-square-foot commissary kitchen on Broadway Road. Teams of 10–12 deliver Monday through Saturday to East Valley homes from the Loop 101 east to Power Road and McKellips Road south to [Guadalupe] Road. For those outside the delivery area, breads can be picked up by appointment. Unsold breads are given to homeless shelters.

“We only sell the [braided] bread on the day it is made, so it tastes as if it were made at home,” Toni says. “That means it is totally fresh, sometimes still warm when it arrives at your door.”

By: David M. Brown